Year 9 Raise the Red Lantern paragraphs

Gigi Wong

Role of Women
The roles of women have been shown in the film ‘Raise the Red
lanterns’. Firstly, at the beginning of the movie, Songlian said
‘Alright, I’ll get married.’ This shows that one of the roles women
would do is to get married and serve for the master, being a
concubine. This film has used a close-up shot technique of this
showing the emotions on Songlian’s face. Songlian showed the
emotion of sadness that she does not want to get married. Women
had no choice to who she marry but at some occasions, women are
able to choose the social classes the men are in that they want to
get marry with. Women would marry the higher social class men
because of the amount of money they would receive for marring.
Secondly, the role of women was also shown when the foot
massaging women serves the mistress. ‘I’m here to serve you’ the
foot massaging servant. Women also have to be a servant, if not
married to one of the men. Servants would have to serve the upper
social class people including other women. For Songlian, she would
serve the master and for the servants, they would not only serve
the master but also the mistress. Women would serve woman and
men would serve men. Is fate that women are serve people that are
higher class then them, like serving the men.

The social Classes in Chinese Culture

There are big differences between the social classes in Chinese
culture. Firstly, the costumes the character wears would represent
the different social class they are. In the film, Songlian is the
mistress and she wears bright colors to show that she has the power
and she is important to the mistress. The servants wear plain and
old style color; this shows that the costumes the character wears
represent the social class they are in. The colors of the costumes are
also different between the 3 mistresses, to show the different
position in the household. The first mistress wore the color dark
purple costume showing that she has the most power out of the
other entire mistress as the color chows rich and powerful and a
mature age. Secondly, it had also shown at the first meal once
Songlian has arrived into the household. When the 3rd mistress
arrived late at the meal table to eat one of their meals together,
Songlian stood up to greet her instead of sitting down. Standing up
 Year 9 Raise the Red Lantern paragraphs
Gigi Wong

to greet others are only done to people that have higher status than
you. While the 3rd mistress had a higher class status of been married
to the master before Songlian, she would even have more power
because of her being able to have a male child. The actions to
people depend on the different social class the person have and the
social class can be known by their appearance.

The Patriarchal system

The household in the film ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ convey a
patriarchal system. Firstly, the film did not show the face of the
master. His position in the household was too high, that the face
does not need to be seen to show the power in the house. His
actions and the way of behaving have showed the great amount of
power the master has, that the women would obey him in the
house. Secondly, the patriarchal system was also shown at every
night in the household through the whole film. Red lanterns were
followed by the master, which when the red lanterns are placed in
the fourth house, that house would now have the power to do
things. Red lanterns are the master. This shows that the men has all
the power in the household.